“Three quarters of all German World Cup jerseys are sold in May and June”

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Gunnar Jans

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Sports business I 05/11/2018

Three questions about the DFB jersey for Kim Roether, Intersport CEO

“Three quarters of all German World Cup jerseys are sold in May and June”

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The 2018 World Cup in Russia is just around the corner – fans’ demand for the new German World Cup jersey is increasing. The DFB jersey is also a sales guarantor for the sports retailer association Intersport. Intersport Chairman Kim Roether explains how successfully the new Germany jersey is selling – and what challenges retailers are facing with Adidas and the digital strategy.

Kim Roether is Chief Executive Officer of Intersport.

Image credit: Intersport

In fall of 2017, Adidas presented the German World Cup jersey for the finals in Russia. The DFB jersey was always a sales guarantor for specialty sports retail at the last large tournaments. But what do the figures look like for the World Cup this year?

ISPO.com spoke with Kim Roether, CEO of Intersport, about the current business with the Germany uniform and the online solo run by Adidas last year.

DFB jersey the most popular item

ISPO.com: How important is the World Cup, and the German World Cup jersey in particular, for Intersport retailers with a view to sales in 2018?Kim Roether, Chairman of the Board at Intersport: The World Cup is an important event for us in the association. It’s an integral part of the budget planning for every Intersport retailer. The German team’s World Cup jersey is clearly the most-demanded item by our customers. The revenue is evolving in parallel with the performance of the DFB eleven. The further the team progresses, the better it is for us in World Cup merchandise sales.

In this context, how did you feel about Adidas selling the World Cup jersey exclusively via its own digital channels in fall 2017?The fact that Adidas only offers these kinds of licensed products through its own channels before the specialty retail can access them has since become standard practice. Naturally, this measure has an impact on our retailers’ sales opportunities for an item as important as the DFB team jersey.

DFB jersey in demand after end of Bundesliga season

How have the number of orders for the Germany jersey evolved, and how does it look for the 2018 DFB jersey? What’s new for the current sales period is that Adidas is selling the DFB jersey exclusively through its logistics. For this reason, compared to previous soccer events, this time we didn’t process our retailers’ orders via our central warehouse in Heilbronn. Every retailer who wanted to stock the jersey was able to purchase a certain number of jerseys from Adidas at the end of last year.

We’ve sold about 70,000 DFB jerseys in the Intersport alliance since November 2017. That includes the Home & Away, as well as the adult and children’s models. In relation to the 2014 World Cup, this is somewhat less than the same period at the end of April. Nevertheless, experience has shown that roughly three quarters of all DFB jerseys sold by the end of the tournament aren’t sold until May or June. We expect sales figures to rise significantly after the end of the Bundesliga season.